272 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



The second lecture was delivered on the i6th of December, 

 1902, your President again in the chair. The lecturer was 

 Mr, E. P. Witten, B.Sc, and the subject "Deep Sea Life." 

 The lecturer gave a brief account of the history of deep sea 

 investigations, followed by a description of the main char- 

 acteristics of deep sea animals, illustrating his points by 

 means of lantern slides of typical forms. 



I am glad to say both these meetings were exceedingly 

 well attended, and the greatest interest was taken in the 

 subject matters of the lectures. 



Apart from the meetings of the Club, I paid a short 

 ornithological visit to the coast and valleys of Cumberland ; 

 and the keeper again obligingly accompanied me over the 

 nesting station at Ravenglass on the 17th of May, 1902. The 

 boatman, on rowing me across, informed me that on the 

 previous Sunday, in company with the village doctor, he had 

 at the opposite side of the river seen a nest of the Ring 

 Dotterel containing five eggs, one of them being very light in 

 colour ; and they had observed a number of young birds. I 

 paid a visit myself to this part of the coast on the following 

 Tuesday; but the only nest I saw was that of an Oyster 

 Catcher containing three eggs, which from their feel evidently 

 were quite fresh. The nest consisted of a circular depression 

 in the sand, lined with a little dried grass and bents. On 

 landing at the nesting colony we heard the Little Tern over- 

 head, but it evidently had not commenced to nest. The 

 keeper and the boatman (both of whom are evidently very 

 careful observers of birds) stated that this year the Sandwich 

 Terns had arrived at their nesting places on the ist of April, 

 whilst last year they first made their appearance on the 29th 

 of March. The Little Terns had followed about a fortnight 

 later, and the Common Terns another fortnight after the 

 smaller birds. The period of nesting is pretty much in 

 accordance with the times of the arrivals of the birds. We 

 found the Sandwich Terns in four different places. The 



